


You're My Love Language

by Periwinkle39



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Jonsa Valentine 2021, jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29417070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Periwinkle39/pseuds/Periwinkle39
Summary: The love languages manifest over the years in Sansa and Jon's relationship.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 64
Kudos: 149
Collections: Jonsa Valentine 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Valentine's Day, I thought it would be fun to explore a modern AU from Sansa's point of view in which love manifests between them slowly, over time.

**Middle School: Words of Affirmation**

“You OK?”

The words startle Sansa. She has just walked into the family room. Expecting it to be empty, since everyone else is out of the house, she didn’t stop herself from crying and is now embarrassed and annoyed at having been caught by her brother’s best friend, Jon. 

“Yeah, I’m great,” she mumbles back, plopping herself down on the couch unceremoniously. Jon is on the other end with a book on his lap. She wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She chances a look at him and there’s a confused smile on his face. It annoys her further, which he notices.

“Sorry,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you be sarcastic.”

She shrugs and looks away, feeling her cheeks warm. Jon has been around as long as Sansa can remember. Since his mom died a few years ago, it’s not uncommon for him to be here when the rest of the family isn’t. Her siblings all treat him as one of their own, but Sansa doesn’t quite know what to make of him. In fairness, she thinks her own siblings don’t know quite what to make of her sometimes.

Like Robb, Jon is a sophomore. She’s only in 8th grade, but like all her friends, she already knows everything about all the cliques at Winterfell High School. Robb is Mr. Popular, a three-sport varsity athlete and Prom King in the making. Jon is not quite the opposite but almost. He runs track and from what she has heard her father say he’s really smart. She’d have thought that Robb and Jon would have drifted apart by now because they’re so different. Today is a perfect example. Robb is out with his girlfriend du jour for Valentine’s Day and Jon’s here seemingly happy not to be around anyone. 

“Is everything OK, though?” she hears him say.

Sansa looks at him again, and she thinks she can see actual concern on his face. She thinks. Jon’s default expression is concern. 

“I can’t do a back handspring.”

He responds with a look of confusion and: “Isn’t that true of most people?” For whatever reason, that makes her laugh.

“It means I can’t be a cheerleader next year. I know it’s stupid to be upset about it, but tryouts are next week and the signup form asks about that so there’s no getting around it.”

“It’s February,” he says, still confused.

“Tryouts happen now so everyone can make plans to go to cheer camp in the summer.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I guess?”

“I know you probably think it’s stupid, and I know I’m stupid for crying about it.

“You’re not stupid, Sansa.”

She looks him in the eye and is surprised that he seems to mean this. Surprised that he says it with conviction like he knows her. Does he know her?

Shaking her head and looking away, she says, “I just always pictured high school in a very specific way, and now I’m not sure what to expect.”

“You’re smart and you’re nice and you’re pretty. I think you can expect it to be whatever you want. You don’t need to be a cheerleader. Everyone will like you no matter what. But just so you know high school mostly sucks.”

Sansa’s cheeks warm again. Jon turns his attention back to his book and Sansa feels silly for feeling flattered. She’s his friend’s little sister and he’s just trying to make her feel better, not flirting or anything. 

“Does it really?” she asks quietly.

He sighs, picking his book up again and she wonders if he’s already tired of talking to her. “It’s probably just me that thinks that.”

“Why? I mean you’re smart and you’re nice too.”

“But not pretty?”

Sansa’s eyes widen in embarrassment but finds herself momentarily caught in his stare before he bursts out laughing. 

“I’m messing with you,” he says, that rare smile on his face. “I know the answer to that question and it probably is why I think high school sucks. You’re going to be fine.”

“You’re weird,” she hears herself say after a long moment. 

He shrugs, not looking up. His expression is back to his sad default, brow furrowed in concentration as he reads.

“In a good way.”

At this he looks up.

“Don’t change, OK?”

“OK,” he says, though he sounds unsure. 

Sansa gets up and goes to her room wondering why it feels like everything has changed.

* * *

**High School: Quality Time**

“You OK?”

Sansa is up to her ears in snow, so she supposes it’s appropriate that after what must have looked like a spectacular sledding crash, Jon Snow is here to rescue her from the huge drift of the stuff into which she crashed. She can hear Robb, Bran, Rickon and Arya all laughing from the top of the hill. 

It dumped two feet of snow overnight and the Starks plus Jon—and every school-age kid in Winterfell, it seems—are out taking advantage of the day off from school. It’s Valentine’s Day and Sansa was expecting to spend it at school handing out pink carnations with the rest of the Student Council, and hoping to find one from her current crush, Lloras Tyrell, in the dozen or so she knew had been ordered for her. Instead she’s on the hill at the back of the Stark property sledding with her siblings. And Jon. 

Sansa tries to push herself up but the snow is too soft and she can’t get leverage. It isn’t until she feels a hand pulling her up by the arm that she finds her balance again. He pulls her up so quickly and easily, she stumbles into him, eyes wide in shock at finding his inches away from hers. 

“Is anything broken?” 

Sansa blinks, unable to form words. 

He misreads her expression as confusion and offers, “That’s what my mom used to ask whenever I fell.”

“I’m fine,” she says, stepping away and brushing the snow off the front of her parka. “I think I’m done sledding, though.”

“WATCH OUT!”

Sansa and Jon turn to see Robb and Rickon gleefully barreling toward them in the double sled. Naturally, everyone ends up back in the heap of powder that Jon just dug Sansa out of. 

“Mother fucker!” she hears him utter.

“Did _you_ just break something?” she asks.

“No, but I’ve got snow down my back now.”

“Your name is Snow,” Robb says, clearly unrepentant, “You should be at home in this stuff.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“That was awesome,” Rickon says with a laugh as he crawls out of the snow and starts the march back up the hill. 

“If you want to change, just go grab something from my closet,” Robb says, as he turns to follow Rickon. “But I think you’ll survive.”

Jon is standing with his back arched uncomfortably as if he’s trying to keep his back from touching the wet clothes covering it.

They turn to make the walk back to the house, when they hear Arya yell out, “BYE, LOSERS!”

Sansa laughs as Jon sticks up his middle finger above his head without turning around. She realizes that this is the first time she has been alone with Jon in a long time, and she suddenly feels nervous. They’re friends. Sort of. He’s always around but she doesn’t wonder about it like she did when she was younger. They don’t really talk but his presence is a comfort. She thinks of Lloras and her useless crush on him. She feels something for Jon and has for years now, but “crush” feels too infantile a word for it. It’s a loose and awkward feeling, like a piece of clothing that doesn’t quite fit yet. Something that would overwhelm her if she tried it on now. She doesn’t know if it will ever fit. 

Sansa glances over at Jon and he looks like he always does: Sad in a way that makes her want to take care of him. 

He must notice her looking at him and turns to meet her eyes. There’s a little bit of surprise in his expression. 

“When did you get so tall?”

She smiles, realizing—like he just has—that they are looking eye to eye. 

She bites her lip, almost afraid of all the ways she wants to respond, afraid of how maybe now she’s not just the little sister to him anymore. “I think you’re just short.”

He smiles and looks forward again, which allows her to see the cute way his eyes crinkle. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

They walk the rest of the way in silence. 

Once inside the house, after they have taken off their jackets and boots, Jon heads to Robb’s room and Sansa considers what she wants to do. Her siblings will be sledding the rest of the afternoon, no doubt. Dad is still at work and her mom out running errands. She thinks again about the fact that she doesn’t get to see Jon all that much. He’ll be off to college soon and she knows that he’s planning on going away to Castle Black. It’s possible that after this year, she won’t ever see him regularly ever again, and that thought propels her upstairs and to her brother’s door. She’s just about to knock when Jon opens the door. 

“Oh, you’re probably going back outside,” she says lamely.

“Do you need something?”

“Um . . . no, I . . . do you want to make cookies with me?”

The surprised, confused smile comes back.

“Cookies?”

She shrugs. “I’m bored and hungry.”

“Um, sure.”

The spend the afternoon that way. In the kitchen baking and decorating. She peppers him about the college application process and where he’s going and what he’s going to do. She can tell he’s a little weirded out at first. They never spend time together like this, but after a while, he just goes with it. 

In the end, they make three dozen, and she packs up one dozen for him to take home. He accepts them with a blush and asks if she’ll send him some while he’s away at college. 

She smiles back and nods.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character death-related sadness (not Jon or Sansa) mixed in with the fluff in this installment.

**College: Physical Touch**

“You OK?”

Sansa turns and sees Jon at the door, he’s leaning against it, looking as exhausted as she feels.

“Not really,” she responds with a sigh.

“Sorry,” he says, quietly. “Stupid question."

It’s been a week since a drunken driver took her older brother, six days since the redeye she took from King’s Landing, where she’s been a student at KLU for the last three years. After the initial shock, a numbness took over. It’s gotten her through the last few days, but she has to fly back to school tomorrow and she’s not sure if she can make it without breaking down. Feeling herself crumbling in the face of so many well-meaning friends telling her everything Robb meant to them, she went up to hide out in his room. She knows she should be downstairs helping her parents, but she since she sat down on the bed she hasn’t been able to bring herself to move. 

Jon steps in and the din of gathered mourners downstairs is barely audible once he closes the door behind him.

He has been here all week. She vaguely remembers him picking her up at the airport. He’s been sleeping on the floor in Rickon’s room because Rickon has been having nightmares, waking up thinking everyone else in the family is gone too. This morning he took Arya out for a run, even after having stayed up late last night talking Lord of The Rings with Bran to help him take his mind off things.

And now, he’s sitting next to her and pulling her into his arms. Sansa leans into his embrace, solid and warm. She closes her eyes and just lets go. Her emotions, her memories—everything comes out and she feels his arms tighten around her as her sobbing shakes her whole body. After several minutes, her breathing is back to a steady rhythm. She can also feel _his_ breathing, each breath deep and long and she realizes that he’s crying too. She pulls back to look him in the eyes and he takes her face in his hands to wipe off her tears. She starts to do the same to him, except she takes his chin in her hand and starts turning his head this way and that as if to inspect his face. He must see something funny in her expression because he starts chuckling and then she is too.

“What?” Jon asks finally, a soft, becoming, bemused smile on his face.

“Is this facial hair a result of you not shaving this week or . . .”

“Nah, it’s a choice.”

“An interesting choice.”

He frowns. “You don’t like it?”

She wants to say she loves it. That she loves _him_. That the beard is the perfect compliment to his curly hair, which she also loves. That she has thought about him with surprising and embarrassing regularity these past years when so much distance has separated them—through several boyfriends, the loss of her virginity and the other normal ups and downs of college life. She wants to say she misses sending him cookies and getting his sweet (if short) thank you emails back in response with pictures of his friends enjoying them, back when she was in high school and he in college.

He’s in Winterfell again now, studying law at the local university, and has a pretty, blonde girlfriend whose name is Val, because of course it is.

She wants to ask how it is that he knew just now exactly what to do to make her feel better.

Instead, she just smiles and says, “It makes you look grown up.”

“Robb said I look like a wannabe hipster.”

Sansa laughs, the first full throated laugh that’s come out of her all week. Her whole body shakes with a joyful relief at having thought of her brother in a way that makes her laugh instead of cry.

Jon laughs too, so much that he turns to wipe his eyes.

“Of course, he would say that,” she says. “He probably hated that you look so good.”

He smiles, sheepish—or is it _pleased?_ —at her compliment but doesn’t respond.

“Keep it,” she says, rubbing her hands over his beard one more time for good measure. “That way you’ll always know that when he’s looking down on you, he’s also rolling his eyes.”

Jon laughs again and stands. “You ready to go back down there? You don’t have to, but I think people were starting to leave when I came up so it might not be as bad.”

“You go ahead. I’ll be down in a few.”

“OK.” He holds his hand out and when she puts hers in it, he pulls her up and into another hug, lifting her up to the tips of her toes. She will remember this Valentine’s Day as they day she learned Jon is a great hugger. He pulls back and kisses her gently on the forehead.

“Will you take me to the airport tomorrow?” she asks as he walks to the door. _Will you still be my friend now that Robb is gone?_

“Of course.” He pauses at the door and then adds, “I’m always going to be there for you, Sansa, you know that, right?”

She nods but there’s something in his eyes like maybe he doesn’t believe her. Doesn’t believe that she believes him.

“Do you remember how you used to send me cookies?” he asks.

She nods again. It had started on another Valentine’s Day, a snowy one, a happier one. Sansa thinks how that was five years ago to the day.

“Will you send me some when you get back to King’s Landing?”

Her smile spreads across her face like the warmth she’s starting to feel again. She nods one more time and says, “Thank you, Jon.”

* * *

**Adulthood: Acts of Service**

“You OK?”

The words are barely out of Jon’s mouth when he walks into the bedroom of Sansa’s new apartment before he bursts out laughing.

“Stop it!” she says, laughing herself, surrounded as she is by all the pieces of the IKEA bed she just bought that don’t look like the could come together into anything remotely resembling furniture on which a person could sleep. She’s been at it for an hour, and in that time Jon has moved all her living room furniture into place and unpacked her books.

After graduating last May and moving home, she finally started a job a little over a month ago that pays enough for her to get her first apartment on her own. Jon got a few of his friends to move her things so she wouldn’t have to pay for movers. Once all the boxes were in this morning, Sansa ordered them lunch as a thank you. Jon is still here helping her unpack her big stuff, before Catelyn and Arya come over tomorrow to finish getting her settled in.

“Help me!”

“Obviously,” he says tip-toeing into the room around all the pieces of bed everywhere.

“No, I mean help me up.” She holds her hand up and he pulls her to her feet. Looking around the room, she doesn’t even know where to begin. When her eyes land on his again, his smile is way too smug and way too sexy for its own good. “I _can_ do this by myself.”

“I have no doubt of that, but it would take a lot less time if I helped.”

Sansa feels self-conscious all of a sudden. It’s Valentine’s Day and he’s been here with her all day. “Oh, Gods, I’m sorry. You probably have plans with your, um—is she your girlfriend?”

“Who, Dany? No,” he says dismissively. “She’s out of the picture. Has been for weeks.”

“Really? When you brought her to my parents’ for New Year’s, I kind of thought that meant it was serious.”

“It definitely wasn’t serious,” he says scratching the back of his neck. Sansa wonders why because that usually means he’s nervous. “She invited herself, which made for a very awkward evening. I guess I’m glad that wasn’t totally obvious, but that night really was the beginning and end of it.”

“Well, I hope we didn’t chase her away.”

Jon chuckles, squatting down to pick up the instructions for the bed. He’s still fidgety in a way that feels unusual to Sansa. “I _was_ you, actually.”

“Oh . . . I’m sorry,” laughing nervously. “I know we Starks can be a handful all together.”

“Not, um . . . I don’t mean you as in the lot of you.” He pauses, taking a breath as if to steel himself. “Just you.”

“Me?! But . . . I didn’t even speak to her—wait, was _that_ why? I’m so sorry, I don’t—”

“Stop,” he says gently. He’s standing up again, facing her but looking down at his hands, which are folding and unfolding the instructions, like he’s determined not to look her in the eye. She’s never seen him like this and her heart is in her throat. Does he _blame_ her? How could she ever make up for that?

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

“You don’t need to apologize.” He rubs his face with his hand, uttering to himself, “Seven, why am I so bad at this.”

“Jon—“

“Wait, San. I really need to get this out.” Another deep breath. “I’m not sure why I’m bringing this up now. Maybe because it’s Valentine’s Day? Anyway, now that I’ve said as much I’ve said, I need to just . . . ” he finally looks up at her as he gestures with his hands like he wants to say more but the words won’t come.

And suddenly Sansa understands.

There’s a look in his eyes that she has never seen before but she recognizes it. She’s fantasied about it many, many times but never actually seen it. Not in his eyes when he’s looking at her. Not until right now. She feels something blooming in her. The corners of her lips pull into a smile, which she covers with her hands.

“You need to what?” she prompts quietly.

He chuckles again and finally looks at her. He smiles, embarrassed, but a bit more at ease. “Arya has insisted to me that I’m in love with you for literal years now. I always denied it because she was just being Arya, you know, but Dany . . . she said she saw it the minute we were in the same room. I’m still not really sure what she saw, but since she said it, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head.”

“I can relate.”

“Yeah?”

Sansa nods, feeling her eyes fill with tears.

He takes a step toward her. “I was thinking how the last two years . . . since Robb died. We’ve gotten so close because I was trying to . . . be there for you the way he would be.”

She grins and takes a step toward him. “Robb would never have changed the shower head in my bathroom just because I said I liked the ones mom and dad have at home. He wouldn’t have rented a truck for me. He would have helped me move, but he’d have complained about it the entire fucking time.”

They both laugh, and they’re so close now that they can wrap their arms around each other as they do so. The laughter somehow becomes a kiss. It’s not what Sansa expected or dreamed of because it’s better. It’s everything.

When they pull away, out of breath, she says, “Let’s refocus on the bed.”

“ _Now_ you want my help with the bed?”

“Now there’s a clear need for it, don’t you think?”

He laughs and pulls her into another kiss before saying, with a sigh. “I think this will go faster if you leave me alone in here.”

“Fine, I’ll go order some dinner.”

He opens the instructions again and gets to work, a cute wrinkle of concentration on his brow. He loves her. Maybe he didn’t say it but she knows. He has shown her so well, so often she almost stopped seeing it. But it’s staring her in the face now: his love and the rest of her life.

* * *

**Parenthood: Receiving Gifts**

“You OK?”

Sansa looks up sleepily from her hospital bed to see her equally sleepy husband come in after having walked her parents back to their car.

She nods. “Alone at last.”

Doctors, nurses, lactation specialists, family members have all been in and out of the room all day, since little Robbie Snow made his way into the world in the wee hours this morning. Now family, it’s just the three of them. Robbie swaddled into a tiny bundle in his mother’s arms. There’s a cot next to her bed for Jon, but for the moment, he’s climbing up on her bed to snuggle with them.

“I can’t believe you haven’t crashed,” Jon says. “You’ve been awake for almost forty hours.”

“So have you.”

“I didn’t have to give birth to anyone.”

She laughs. “Well, I may yet fall asleep in the middle of this conversation.”

“Before you do that,” Jon says, getting up again. He walks over to the overnight bag he brought with him when he came back in just now and takes out a small box wrapped in red paper. He gives it to her and takes Robbie so she can open it.

“I thought we said no gifts,” she says.

“I agreed to no such thing. It’s Valentine’s Day, which is sort of our anniversary, and now also our son’s birthday.”

“Which means you can buy him presents, not me,” Sansa responds.

“Will you stop pretending you don’t love getting gifts and just open it.”

Sansa narrows her eyes at him but can’t help but smile because it’s true. She loves the presents he surprises her with. Never anything overly fancy or expensive. Just super thoughtful and always exactly what she wants. Like the easel he got her for her birthday so she could start taking painting classes. Or the antique dragonfly pendant for their first anniversary. Or when he got their friend Gilly to needle point a pillow with the phrase “You OK?” after Sansa joked that it was his standard greeting to her. Unfortunately, Jon is not only a great gift giver, but also impossible to shop for. Arya laughs at her about the fact that Sansa feels competitive about this of all things, but it’s mostly just wanting to give him even just half the happiness he has given her.

It’s been five years since that fateful move-in day when it all came together, one and a half since they got married, not planning to have kids for a few more years until Robbie decided to surprise them.

Sansa watches Jon smile down at their sleeping baby for a long moment before getting to the present. She opens it and it’s a double picture frame. On one side it’s a picture he took this morning just after Robbie was born. The other picture is of another newborn baby—her brother, her son’s namesake.

“I hate you,” she says, her voice full of unshed happy tears.

Jon grins. He sets Robbie down in his bassinet, and then comes over to lay next to Sansa again.

“Does that mean you like it?”

“It means I love it.”

He leans in for a kiss. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

She snuggles into his chest and fall asleep.


End file.
